Meme Agora2017-09-25T13:52:19+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagoraNeal FordCopyright (c) Neal Ford.Knowledge Breadth versus Depth2015-09-08T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2015/09/08/knowledge-breadth-versus-depth.htmlAs an architect, value technical breadth so that you have a larger quiver from which to draw arrows. If you are transitioning from developer to architect, realize that you may have to change the way you view knowledge acquisition.Simple, Repetitive Tasks2015-09-02T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2015/09/02/simple-repetitive-tasks.htmlComputers are designed to do simple repetitive tasks. As soon as you have humans doing repetitive tasks on behalf of computers, they all get together late at night and laugh at you.Ambient Information2015-07-20T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2015/07/20/Ambient_information.htmlAny friction between information and its access represents a cost of that information. Apple Watch drives the cost of the information you want to see to virtually zero.Architecture is abstract until operationalized.2015-03-30T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2015/03/30/architecture_is_abstract_until_operationalized.htmlMicroservice architecture is the first post-DevOps revolution architecture, highlighting the realization that architecture and DevOps must mesh, making operational concerns a first-class citizen in architectural design.How Bad Presentations Lead Us to Create Presentation Patterns2013-10-16T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2013/10/16/presentation_patterns_origins.htmlApplying patterns to presentations was a stretch, another in a long string of potentially specious relationships between things that pop into my head from time to time. Yet, I couldn't give this idea up. Despite myself, I continued to identify patterns (and anti-patterns) in my own talks and others. I thought about writing it down, but at the time, the concept was still restricted to technical presentations, and I realized the audience for such a book would be entertaining to many of my presenter friends, but to not many other people. But then I realized that all professionals must do presentations at one time or another.Build Your Own Technology Radar2013-05-28T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2013/05/28/build_your_own_technology_radar.htmlCreating a technology radar for yourself helps you formalize your thinking. . .You should treat your technology portfolio like a financial portfolio (in many ways, they are the same thing). . .Most C-level types get more advice from sales men than people in their own company. . . While this is a wild fantasy, wouldn't it be great if one of the formalities during job interviews became the trading of radars, personal and company, as a way for each to assess the other?Why Everyone (Eventually) Hates (or Leaves) Maven2013-01-22T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2013/01/22/why_everyone_eventually_hates_maven.htmlMaven is opinionated, rigid, generic, and dogmatic, which is exactly what is needed at the beginning of a project. Before anything exists, it's nice for something to impose a structure, and to make it trivial to add behavior via plug-ins and other pre-built niceties. But over time, the project becomes less generic and more like a real, messy project. Early on, when no one knows enough to have opinions about things like lifecycle, a rigid system is good. Over time, though, project complexity requires developers to spawn opinions, and tools like Maven don't care.Meme Wrangler Origins2011-05-01T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2011/05/01/meme_wrangler_origins.htmlA Meme Wrangler -- someone who herds ideas into thoughts, generally through lengthy and complicated discussions (not so much quarrels as "impassioned conversations").The iPad - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly2010-06-09T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2010/06/09/Ipad_good_bad_ugly.htmlI'm convinced that the iPad is the first iteration of the next major computing platform. PC's will become work and power user tools, but everyone will use iPad-like things for many tasks. This is the first incarnation - can you imagine what these things will look like in 5 years?Why Twitter Matters2009-12-22T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2009/12/22/Why_Twitter_matters.htmlTwitter is a meme abiogenesis pool, helping form a karass around a wampeter more effectively.Productivity Pron2009-11-04T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2009/11/04/Productivity_pron.htmlFinding a good system that doesn't get in your way yet allows you to organize all the things going on in your life (both personal and professional) is surprisingly difficult, given the number of tools that purport to do just this.The Suck/Rock Dichotomy2009-08-05T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2009/08/05/suck-rock-dichotomy.htmlWhen a community fades, the fanaticism of the remaining members increases proportionally for every member they lose, until you are left with one person whose veins stick out on their forehead when they try to proselytize people to join their tribe, which rocks, and leave that other tribe, which sucks.Productivity and Location Awareness2009-07-15T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2009/07/15/productivity-and-location-awareness.htmlContext sensitivity makes it hard to leverage location awareness.AML (Arbitrary Modeling Language)2009-06-10T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2009/06/10/aml.htmlUML is too technical for non-technical people, but not technical enough for technical people.Confessions of a Reformed Titilator2009-05-01T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2009/05/01/confessions_of_a_reformed_titilator.htmlUltimately, using sexually provocative material in a technical presentation is just lazy -- when we do it we're not spending the time to come up with really compelling metaphors to represent something, relying instead on the basest of currency.SOA and the Tar Pit of Irrelevancy2009-04-22T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2009/04/22/soa_tarpit_irrelevancy.htmlSOA doesn't have to be a huge scary thing. It's just software, and we aren't going to throw our playbook out the window just because it sounds scary.Irrational Artifact Attachment2008-12-01T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2008/12/01/irrational_artifact_attachment.html

The lowly whiteboard is one of my favorite tools for design work on projects: you can stand in front of it as a group, you can easily play “what-if” games with emergent designs, and you can argue until everyone agrees (or at least until everyone is equally unhappy). Once you’ve got it done, a quick snap with a digital camera and you’ve got a project artifact, ready to post on a wiki or similar until supplantation by actual code. Once you have real code, you are better off allowing the design to continue to emerge from it rather than trying to keep the two in sync. Alternatively, you can use a reverse engineering tool to produce a prettier version of the original diagram from the code.

Comments == Code Smell2008-11-07T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2008/11/07/comments_are_a_code_smell.htmlBoth kinds of comments represent different smells, each with different odors depending on the target.Why I Hate Christmas Music2007-01-26T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2007/01/26/Why_I_Hate_Christmas_Music.htmlI hate catchy tunes because the stick in my head and won't go away. What most people like about pop music is the very thing that makes me dislike it -- the hook.Polyglot Programming2006-12-05T00:00:00+00:00http://nealford.com/memeagora/2006/12/05/Polyglot_Programming.htmlApplications of the future will take advantage of the polyglot nature of the language world.